(Champion Rework) Sion, the Undead Champion

	1	Growth	18		1	Growth	18
Health	420	(+85)	1865	Attack damage	56.5	(+3.5)	116
Health regen.		(+0)		Attack speed		(+0%)
Mana	(+0)			Armor		(+0)
Mana regen.		(+0)		Magic resist.		(+0)
Attack range	N/A			Mov. speed	N/A

(Note: This post is obsolete after Sion's complete relaunch in V4.18. I still think the ideas below have some value as a potential different direction that could have been taken for Sion, though his official overhaul is by far the better one.)

This is a tentative rework for Sion, the Undead Champion. Right now, his identity and kit are all over the place: he's a lumbering undead juggernaut with an axe, but half of his abilities are magic spells and he somehow can function as a mage. Instead of having a coherent set of abilities, he has half an AD kit and half an AP kit that have no real relation to each other. Both playstyles also have severe gameplay problems, mainly his AP kit which offers zero interaction to his laning opponent, being just a point-and-click playstyle that makes him use his shield to deal damage rather than block anything. He does, however, have an awesome core theme (big hulking zombie brute that feels no pain), and he should have his kit focused around this. Credit goes to Emptylord for the idea of Sion's new Q, which I ~~stole~~ borrowed from his own rework.

Abilities[]

Sion permanently increases his maximum health by 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (based on level) every time he kills a unit. This bonus is doubled against champions, large monsters and large minions.

Additional info

Sion's health gain on kill is his most iconic ability, and I feel it defines him as an unstoppable undead warrior. The way it's currently implemented, though, means AD Sion has no choice but to max out Enrage as soon as possible to get as much health from farm as he can, and AP Sion ignores this facet of his kit almost completely. Moreover, it's an ability that presents a false choice in gameplay: sure, you lose health on hit, but you need to get as much max health as possible from the start and after a few items the health cost becomes irrelevant, so you're going to have the ability always toggled on. In this kit I wanted to get rid of AP Sion, as I feel his mechanics have nothing really worth keeping, and instead wanted to change his kit in a manner similar to Master Yi's rework, making him exclusively AD and focusing on his strengths as a top laner and a jungler.

Since he no longer has to trade health to gain health (!), I also heavily reduced Sion's health from 403 (+ 104) to 420 (+ 85), 2 less health at level 1 and 325 less health at level 18. This is still pretty high (1950 health), but as the only champion capable of having potentially infinite health he doesn't need to have the highest health gain per level on top of that. However, since he's also losing his permanent AD bonus I buffed his attack damage from 55.52 (+ 3.188) to 56.5 (+ 3.5), which is 60 at level 1 (one of the best) and 119.5 at level 18 (also one of the best). Although I'm completely changing Sion's ult and removing the AS steroid, I'm leaving Sion's attack speed untouched, as I think it's fairly ridiculous for a big slow-moving hulk to slap his weapon around twice a second when the emphasis should be on him dealing brutal damage with each lumbering swing of his axe.

No additional details.

Active: Sion hurls an axe, dealing physical damage to the first enemy hit and slowing them. The slow decays over 1.5 seconds.

If Sunder hits a target, the axe will remain lodged in them for 4.5 seconds, causing Sion's next basic attack within that duration to rip the axe from them, reapplying the damage and slow.

Additional info

At its base, this is a replacement to Cryptic Gaze that should make more thematic sense (big crippling axe versus mystic eyes) and have more interactivity. It also potentially has more power, allowing Sion to stick to his target for longer while also allowing them to fight back: Sion's feeling of invincibility should come from his natural toughness, not from his target's inability to retaliate. The reasoning behind the double slow is that Sion gets a shot at catching up to his target, and then more sticking power if he reaches them: while the decaying slow means his victim gets a chance at escaping, he's also less likely to get kited if he gets within hacking range.

In terms of balancing, I wanted this ability to have a strong base damage and slow so that Sion's early ganks as a jungler would be strong, and so that leveling this up in lane to last hit from a distance or slow down targets would be a viable option. Late game, the base damage isn't as incredible, but the slow is powerful enough to give Sion a chance to stick to his target and destroy them with autoattacks.

Physical Damage: 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 (+ 50% bonus AD)

Total Damage: 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 / 220 (+ 100% bonus AD)

Slow: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70%

No additional details.

Active: Sion steels himself against oncoming attacks, shielding himself for 15% of his maximum health against physical damage for up to 4 seconds. While the shield holds, movement-slowing effects on Sion are reduced.

Slow Resist: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35%

If the shield is not destroyed, it explodes, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.

Additional info

While the concept of an exploding shield is amazing, especially on a bruiser/tank, it's currently not used as best as it could be, as current Sion uses a stun+shield combo to burst down a target and not use its defensive properties at all. It also scales really bizarrely on AD Sion, and isn't worth much in the late game. With this version Sion can make use of his shield regardless of his build path, as it synergizes with his new passive.

The idea behind the slow resist is that, although Sion himself will always be relatively sluggish, he can march into a fight and withstand enough punishment thrown at him to get up close to his target. I had two reasons in mind when making his shield exclusive against physical damage: on one hand, physical damage dealers typically don't have as much crowd control as mages but have the damage over time capabilities to kill even Sion with massive amounts of health as they kite him, so this helps him get up close. On the other, Sion's health by itself should be enough to sustain the burst of a lot of mages, so he doesn't need more mitigation against them, but they have a lot of crowd control, so this helps him power through some of it as he gets past their large range and takes advantage of their inferior mobility. I also feel like killing Sion in a teamfight really should be a team effort, with the tank, mage and support keeping him at bay while the marksman, fighter and/or assassin whittles his defenses down.

Physical Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 80% bonus AD)

Explosion Area: 550

No additional details.

Passive: Sion's basic attacks deal 20% AD bonus physical damage against champions and large monsters and increase his healing from spells and basic attacks against them for 3 seconds.

Enhanced Healing: 10 / 12.5 / 15 / 17.5 / 20%

Active: Sion cleaves all enemies in a 90° cone, dealing physical damage and healing himself for a portion of the total damage dealt.

Additional info

In terms of Sion's theme and gameplay, he's an unstoppable undead monster who's meant to keep coming back at you no matter what you throw at him. As a top laner and a jungler, he currently only gains sustain through the ridiculous amounts of lifesteal his ult provides. His current ultimate itself has a lot of problems: it's too strong a steroid, so AD Sion can end up insta-gibbing anyone within range while keeping himself topped up (even AP Sion can achieve this early), and it lasts for too long, so there's not much you can do against him for 20 seconds except run away or apply Grievious Wounds. Since I want to remove his ultimate, I'm instead moving some of his sustain to one of his basic abilities, which should help him a lot more both in lane and in the jungle.

There are a few reasons I implemented the scalings I did, and all of it boils down to early game power: any AoE sustain ability has the potential to be crazy powerful early on, especially in lane (one of the reasons Renekton dominates top lane), and so I implemented a weak, scaling healing ratio so that Sion can't just heal himself for a ton of health early on. This is also why I implemented a scaling total AD ratio and a high-ish initial cooldown, as well as a special case with champions and large monsters: he should only be getting a significant amount of healing if he's fighting someone tough.

On the flipside, this means this ability scales very well later on, which is also why I added a life steal ratio: late game, Sion is meant to carve up his enemies and eat up tons of damage while he does it. I feel life steal is a stat Sion should scale really well with, particularly as it fits into a playstyle where Sion can survive extended amounts of punishment, but still die if he gets focused or kited properly. It also fits into the framework where the new or reworked melee fighters scale well with three key stats: Olaf scales with health, AD and attack speed, and both Master Yi and Yasuo scale with AD, attack speed and critical strike chance. Here, my version of Sion would scale with AD, life steal and health. This is also apparent with the bonus damage on attack, which is similar to his current Enrage: he's meant to be a good duelist, and even if all of his abilities deal damage he's an autoattacker at his core, able to deal massive damage with every hit.

Physical Damage: 10 / 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 (+ 110 / 120 / 130 / 140 / 150% AD)

Healing: 5 / 7.5 / 10 / 12.5 / 15% (+ 25% life steal)

No additional details.

Active: Sion smashes his axe into the target enemy champion, dealing physical damage and causing them to bleed for additional physical damage over 5 seconds. The duration is refreshed if Sion deals damage to the target.

Physical Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 (+ 150% AD)

Damage over Time: 50 / 75 / 100 (+ 100% AD)

If the target dies from Brutalize or while bleeding, Sion becomes empowered for the next 7 seconds. If he takes fatal damage during this time, he rises again after a 3 second delay with a percentage of his maximum health and the amount of mana he had before dying.

Additional info

Sion needs a new ultimate. Currently what he has is a massive steroid that, in addition to having visibility and power issues (why does it heal allies around him?), doesn't make as much thematic sense as it should (why is a big hulking zombie with a massive axe swinging his weapon around more than twice a second?). Instead, I wanted something that fitted his theme as a brute (i.e. him bringing his axe down so hard on his victim it causes massive bleeding) but also as an undead juggernaut (i.e. him rising from the dead again and again in the midst of battle).

In terms of gameplay, this is meant to be an initiate in the same way as his current steroid, only it should bring a lot more initial impact while also encouraging him to march into heavy fire, since he gets to resurrect if he takes down his target. It should also provide more interaction on both sides: on one hand, his team can guarantee the prolonged survival of their initiator if they follow his lead and focus his victim, and on the other the enemy team can choose to either focus Sion before his victim bleeds out or protect the brutalized champion until the bleeding stops.

Health Regained: 30 / 40 / 50% of maximum health

No additional details.

What do you think? Does this kit work? Is it too strong, too weak? I know that this isn't exactly current Sion, but mainly because current Sion has core gameplay and identity issues I think need fixing (namely, his AP playstyle). I did, however, want to keep an emphasis on him being an autoattacking fighter who also uses abilities a lot. Do you think this is a good direction to go for Sion?

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(Champion Rework) Sion, the Undead Champion

Contents

Abilities[]

Cannibalism

Sunder

Feel No Pain

Butcher

Brutalize

Role(s)
To be announced., Tank